history

Have you ever wondered how many ancestors you had 200 years ago, or 500 years ago, 1000 years ago, 2000 years ago? Venture to take a guess? It's easy enough to count how many ancestors we have after 3 generations (8 great-grand-parents), 4 generations (16 g-g-grandparents), etc. But what about...

I was wondering what Europe would look like if the various separatist movements had their way. I checked the list of active separatist movements in Europe and selected only the regions with reasonable claims of independence based on the percentage of population supporting independence. This is...

Have you ever wondered what the oldest board games were? Which country has produced the most board games that are usually found in people's homes? Or the most board games per capita? Here is a table to summarise it all. Board game Year invented Place invented The Game of Life 1860 USA...

A friend of mine is starting a new YouTube channel (Sons of Mars) to explain famous historical battles using video scenes he shot while playing Total War in high definition and edited with a special programme. He plans to recreate mostly battles from the Antiquity and teh Middle Ages. It looks...

I have just written a new article attempting to answer the question: Who were the best and worst Kings and regent Queens of France in history? As usual your feedback is welcome.

Genetics Percentage of genetic similarity between humans and animals Genetic inheritance: why people can be closer to one parent than the other genetically How adventurers, outcasts and remainers shape the evolution of society Are humans genetically programmed to live in hierarchical...

I have checked Ragnar Lothbrok's genealogy to find if he had male line descendants to this day. It would not be surprising considering that he had eight sons and they became powerful rulers of their own. The main issue is that the genealogy is disputed. If enough Y-DNA lines survived, it would...

If you ever searched for a country's GDP per capita chances are that you saw a chart showing its evolution over the years. For example the United States had a GDP per capita (PPP) of $54,000 in 2017, but only $37,000 back in 1990 (measured in constant 2011 International Dollars), about the same...

I am currently reading the book series Marius' Mules about the Gallic Wars (first 9 volumes, one book per year) and the Civil War between Caesar and Pompey. It is historical fiction, but written based on Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico. Caesar's book is notoriously tedious to read and...

I recently finished reading Alberto Angela's I tre giorni di Pompei (The [last] three days of Pompeii), in which he mentions that mozzarella didn't exist at the time, but was invented in the 5th century, at the end of the Roman empire. Wikipedia disagrees and says that the earliest buffalo milk...

The work on the K12b admixture by historical culture gave me the idea to show the evolution of genetic admixtures over time by region. I have started with the Near East and East Mediterranean.

I have spent most of the last week calculating the the average values for the K12b admixtures for most of the ancient genomes tested to date. I thank Jovialis for providing me the genomes converted in the right format to run the K12b on Admixture-Studio. You will find the table in the page...

After Gaul, Italy, Iberia and Germanic tribes, here are the Dodecad K12b ancient British people from the Neolithic to the Late Bronze Age. I have calculated the average values (modal) for each period. I then compared these modals to modern populations using Vahaduo.

I have written a Genetic analysis of Ancient Iberia, in which I ran the Dodecad K12b admixtures for most of the good quality samples from the Neolithic to the Early Middle Ages and computed average values (a modal) by era. I then compared these modals to modern populations using Vahaduo.

I long wanted to compare the genomes of various Germanic tribes to see how similar they were with each others and how much they resembled modern Europeans. I have started doing it here with an analysis of Lombard, Anglo-Saxon, Suebi/Alemanni and Ostrogothic genomes. In short, Lombards and...

I have created a page dedicated the the genetics of ancient Gauls. I calculated the Dodecad K12b average percentages for 16 Gaulish samples and ran them against modern populations in Vahaduo to obtain the closest matches.

In the last few days I have worked on finding the haplogroups of the clan chiefs of Scottish clans. Almost all of them have extensive surname DNA projects, so it was easy in most cases. The list includes most of the peerage of Scotland from Viscount to Duke. Highland clans belonging to R1b-L21...

I researched Wyatt Earp's ancestry on Geni and found that he descends from Joshua Earp (1706-1771). The Earp DNA Project has a lineage descending from Josiah Jackson Earp (1761-1844) and his son Allen Milford Earp (1796-1862). It turns out that Josiah is also Joshua's grandson, so it is the same...

Thanks to Regio X for the following. Richard Stockton (1730-1781),was an American lawyer, jurist, legislator, and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. His son, Robert F. Stockton (1795-1866) was a United States Navy commodore, notable in the capture of California during the...

The haplogroups of Lincoln and Grant have been known for several years. I found Robert E. Lee's lineage last year. In the last few days I endeavoured to trace back the Y-DNA of more famous generals of the US Civil War and summarised my findings here. I searched many others but was only...